


Degrees of Sanity

by tolakasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2040858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolakasa/pseuds/tolakasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two truths known to angels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Degrees of Sanity

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through the end of season 9. Angel-focused. Random speculation/fix-it.

There are two truths known to angels.

The first: No matter what happens in Heaven and Hell, no matter who rules, no matter where God is, three things are constant: Humans will be born; humans will fall in love; humans will die.

The second: Because God loved humanity more than He loved the angels, he created three Orders to perpetually watch over them.

These Orders never dwelled in Heaven; none of them knew of the Banishment until they began meeting the other angels in their work. None of them particularly care for Heaven, either, for that is not their function.

The Cupids remain the Order with the closest ties to Heaven, taking their orders about matchmaking from higher angels—and if no orders come, matchmaking at whim. They are too few to bind the entire human race, of course, but God never intended that everyone have that one perfect love, a soulmate, so that does not disturb them. They are the simplest of the angels, really, so perpetually happy that even the seraphim dislike bothering them except to dispense orders.

Not even the seraphim want to be tasked with ordering a cherub to sever a bond that it created. Not even an archangel can stand to see a Cupid cry. It is far less traumatic—for the angel, at least—to kill one of the mortals in question.

The Guardians are failing. There are fewer of them now, too few to properly secure the newborn souls. For the last centuries, seraphim have turned to Guardians for cannon fodder, taking them from teenagers and adults and proclaiming that the Guardian’s role is finished, never mind that God put no such limits on their service, never mind that a Guardian whose ward dies should be put to guarding a newborn immediately. So many have fallen in the Wars of Heaven that thousands upon thousands of human children have no Guardian at all to defend them from corruption; angels emerge from the primordial energy that serves as their mother at a steady rate that is far eclipsed by the human birth rate. Those precious, unguarded souls are twisted into sociopathy—or worse.

The world would be a very different place if Sam Winchester had had a proper Guardian. Mary might still have died—would likely have still died—but had there been a Guardian there, watching over the infant—

A Guardian is a relatively weak thing, in the grand scheme of the angelic world, but in its proper place, defending the purity of a young soul, it can destroy even a demon as old and strong as Azazel.

The Cupids are indifferent. The Guardians are failing.

The Reapers are going mad.

Long ago, they were simply a legion assigned by God to serve Death. None carry sharp silver blades or manifest the shadow of wings. Many—most—have forgotten what they were, and those who do remember would argue that this is a much higher calling than simply being a warrior. Their charges are heavy ones: to preserve the balance of nature, to ease suffering, to kindle the last sparks of a long-cold faith. They must assume the shapes and forms born of a thousand human cultures, therefore they have none of their own. They alone, of all the angels, can command a physical form without taking a vessel, without spilling over into a walking column of light and death. Thus they alone can be possessed, albeit temporarily, by one of the higher demons, should he be so stupid.

Tessa is one of the few who remembers, one of Death’s most devoted servants, accepting his orders without arguing, as her Father intended. Unlike Castiel, she never lost her faith, even in the face of Dean Winchester. She knows her role, knows her place, knows they have not been forsaken. She is far older than Castiel, far older than the seraphim, nearly as old as Metatron and Gadreel. Dean is hardly the first human to shake Heaven’s foundations, and she knows that he will hardly be the last.

Reapers exist for the benefit of the dead, to soothe those confused souls, to send them on their way. For a Reaper, to see the dead tortured is a torment of itself, like a parent forced to watch his child die.

Reapers have long trusted Death and each other. They have no patience for the schemes of the other angels. Like the Cupids, like the Guardians, they exist to fulfill their function. No more. No less.

But the screams of the dead are too much. Death cannot silence them. God will not silence them.

And Metatron promises silence.


End file.
